Jerykk wrote on Jun 24, 2012, 22:42:Learning enemy attack behaviors, timing your blocks, dodges and attacks, managing your cooldowns and positioning your character to avoid being flanked... this is what requires skill and makes the combat interesting.

Wow, that sounds like fun. If only Risen 2 had any of those features then combat in Risen 2 would probably truly be interesting.

Unfortunately it doesn't. At all.

- Enemy attack "behavior" (we need to use a very loose definition of "behavior" to call the spastic random movements of the creatures in Risen 2 "behavior"). Honestly, the AI in this game is simply poor. Just about the only creature where it is fun to wait for the right moment to attack is the giant crab. You need to kick it when it gets on its hind legs and then it topples over for an easy kill. All other creatures "behave" retarded. Depending on your level of humor it will either bring tears of joy or frustration to your eyes when you watch these poor sobs with their even poorer animations flip-flop all over the place.

- Timing blocks: Yep. Real hard to do. Enemy attacks. You block. Wow. I'm a genius!!! [Sorry but I hate if people make extremely simple things sound like rocket science]

- Dodges + attacks: Again just lame. You dodge and run in circles around the enemy. Yawn. Boring.

- Managing cooldowns: LOL. Overstatement of the year. What is there to "manage"? You are once again making a very simple mechanic sound like much more than it is. All you have to do is keep track of your cooldown on healing (you need to screw up real bad to even require any healing at all) and gun shots. Even the most simple MMOs require fucktons more "management" when it comes to the cooldowns.

- Positioning your character to avoid being flanked: This one takes the cake, throws it in the air and hits a fucking home run. You must be the king of n00bs if you seriously want to call using the movement keys an element that makes combat interesting. ROTFLLAWLERCOPTOR!!!

If you try to button-mash your way to victory, you will die.

100% incorrect. Many enemies in Risen 2 require just that. Button-mashing. You just click them to death. There are very few enemies that require blocking and dodging. I finished the game on hard difficulty. I know what I'm talking about.

That alone makes the combat more engrossing than the combat in Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, etc.

Bullshit. Combat in Skyrim or KoA is way more fleshed out and polished and much deeper than the combat in Risen 2 since you actually need to use a much larger variety of skills and equipment etc.Combat in Risen 2 is buggy, laggy and lame in comparison. You can beat every enemy by rolling around on the floor, some blocking and some hitting when the AI is too slow and confused to figure out the position of the player character. Anyone with half a brain can figure out the AI in less than five minutes and after that you're just flying through the game.

But, hey, if you want to make yourself believe that you are the special one because you are among the self-acclaimed elite that "gets" Risen 2 combat then be my guest. For me you are "special" in another kind of sense if you seriously consider yourself special for "mastering" Risen 2's combat system (which takes anyone over the age of four less than five minutes).

Seriously, the extremely poor combat system of Risen 2 has been criticized in just about any and every review on the net and in mags. And rightfully so. There is absolutely no depth to it. It is very shallow and offers very little challenge or variety. Even the boss fights are ridiculously easy. I guess it's OK for an action adventure but since Risen 2 pretends to be a RPG it needs to try much harder next time, i.e. if there will be a Risen 3.

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